Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [264]
I continued to feel that doing little to cultivate a cadre of Iraqi leaders, as Armitage seemed to be suggesting, would be a mistake. “I believe legitimacy comes because the Iraqi Interim Authority is temporary,” I said. “How well it works will determine its legitimacy.” Nobody at the table was going to be able to determine in advance whether or not an interim Iraqi government would be seen as legitimate by the Iraqi people.
“We should take two or three months to consult all Iraqis before we appoint an Interim Authority,” responded Armitage. This too was a consistent message from State: delay.
“So you wouldn’t have an Interim Authority at all?” Cheney asked. The reason for the Iraqi Interim Authority was that it would serve for a short time—probably no more than several months. But if it were substantially delayed, there would be no point in establishing an Interim Authority at all. The meeting ended without resolution.
On March 10, 2003, we met again to discuss the same issue—this time at the National Security Council level with President Bush chairing the meeting.
The President agreed with the framework of the Iraqi Interim Authority proposal. Though we had provided a detailed plan for implementation, the exact execution and timing were left to be worked out in consultation with the Iraqis, who would start by leading smaller ministries and in later stages take control of the more important ones.31 Only after those on the Interim Authority had developed and demonstrated their leadership capability would they take over key government ministries such as the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior, and the Ministry of Oil. But it was not clear if this would be in days, weeks, or months.
The following day I went to see the President. I was concerned about unresolved issues in this planning and the lack of policy resolution. Even though Bush had decided in favor of the Interim Authority, it still was not certain whether State would support quickly transitioning power to the Iraqis as I favored and—I thought—the President had decided.
Because the Defense Department would have to implement whatever plans for postwar Iraq the President finally approved, I wanted to be sure we would have the necessary resources in place. I told the President I thought I should go to Iraq for two weeks after major combat operations to oversee the beginning of the Phase IV plan. I said I would work with General Garner to help ensure that we do whatever was necessary to allow the Iraqis to take leadership of their country.
President Bush didn’t cotton to the idea. “What if we had a problem with North Korea?” he asked.
It was a fair question. As we were preparing for war in Iraq, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il was increasing pressure on the Korean Peninsula by flagrantly violating previous diplomatic agreements to end its WMD programs. The President was concerned that Kim Jong Il might view an Iraq war as an occasion to increase his troublemaking in the region.
“Well, Mr. President, if that happened,” I replied, “I would come home immediately.”
The President thought about that for a moment. Then he shook his head. “No, Don,” he replied. “You need to be here.”32
I should have pressed the point harder. It was clearly important to establish order in Iraq after Saddam was gone—after coalition forces would end three decades of Baathist rule. We would have to fill the resulting political vacuum with a mechanism by which sectarian and ethnic groups could join to govern in a peaceful way. The tensions from State officials pulling in one direction, toward a more lengthy U.S.-run occupation and the Defense Department in another direction, would have to be managed carefully. A top-level administration official in Baghdad might have made a difference in those early days.